Just wanted to let you know about something. Remember when I had to get rid of 110 Carve because it was too small and frustrating for me?

Well, last weekend I was happily blasting on a 110 ltr board (my weight 85 kg) in very light conditions - even though the specs say something different the board could handle my largest, 7.5 2-cam/high carbon rig without a problem. I got myself a windmeter this year and I am able to get on plane and stay upwind in 13 kts! (the wind was very stable though) So it was just me and 2 formula guys ;-).

Anyway, just wanted to mention that and in my case a typical freeride board doesn't feel good to me. Freewave boards give me this buttery smooth ride ofer the chop. Perhaps they are slower, but then when the conditions get harsher you have more control and can actually go faster.
Also, outboard straps setup on a freeride board is more comfortable on longer runs, but hey, when I'm on a 2km run on my fsw board I'm not complaining either!
This all makes me think that unless somebody sails super-flat water a typical freeride board is much worse than a good freestyle-wave board.

Over the holidays I was also happy in major chop and small reef-break on a 105 ltr freewave board and 4.0-5.3 sail.
Maybe not a great achievement but makes me very happy :-).

I'm just wondering, for 4.0-5.0 conditions, do you think my second board should be a typical wave board, around 90 ltr?

-marek

P.S. What's the Starboard equivalent to Fanatic Freewave or RRD freestyle-wave, Code? And if so, did you have a chance to compare them?
Besides these 2 boards I was able to try Mistral 3style this year, and the board didn't feel good (too flat bottom, didn't go well through the chop, problems staying upwind), even though it was the same size and had larger fin.

Hi Marek,
Glad to hear you are getting your skills polished up to be able to sail the smaller boards comfortably.
Yes, the Kode would be the Starboard equvalent of the Freewave and freestyle wave.
From your last comments, it would seem to me that you still need to work on your "tuning".
Could be that some of your issues with the faster boards with harder rails and flatter bottoms could
actually be tuning issues rather than problems with the boards in your conditions.
Get some more experience on different boards, and learn to tune them to be fast and loose, and you may simply fly over some of the chop you are finding, giving you both better speed and that "buttery"
smooth feeling over the chop.
It's not something I can simply explain, but if you move things around, change mast foot positions,
footstrap positions, and rig your sails a little differently, you will begin to learn what works, when tuning,
and what doesn't work.
Hope this helps, and thanks for sharing your progress with us.
Roger